Charmed
by Samuel Marks
Summary: The Doctor and Amy come to the aid of a starship under attack in deep space, and agree to help the human crew to fend off their enemies. But the situation is far more complicated than anyone could have anticipated... Has the Doctor chosen the wrong side, as his faith in his beloved human race is shaken? And Amy Pond learns a valuable lesson about travelling in the TARDIS.


Charmed

By Samuel Marks

The starship _Resilience_ was hit by yet another laser blast, badly compromising the hull. On the command deck, Captain Horatio Starfire studied the technical readouts on his personal computer panel. His usually serious expression cracked, his steely façade peeling away to reveal beneath it the face of a man who was very worried indeed.

"Jansen!" He spoke into the communicator attached to his wrist. "How's the ship holding up back there? How are _you_ holding up? Jansen, report!"

There was no reply, only static on the airwaves.

A side door crashed open and a woman stumbled in, rocked from side to side by the steady barrage of laser bolts impacting against the exterior of the ship.

"Jansen's dead," she said. "She and the whole of Deck 3 were completely obliterated. And the coward Addams ran away, screaming like a little girl, all the way to the only escape pod."

The woman was Helena Ross, Starfire's superior in age only, certainly not in rank. She was his second in command, as he so often felt the need to remind her. But truthfully she was just as wise as him, if not more so. He knew that, though he would never admit it to her.

Another explosion rocked the ship. Captain Starfire swore under his breath and cursed his dreadful luck. This was supposed to have been a simple job – how had everything gone so wrong, so fast?

Starfire was a solitary figure. He was one of the few people who were happier alone than amongst friends or companions. He hated relying on others, and he was confident – nay, certain – that if he had carried out this operation alone, it would have been entirely successful.

But now that events had spiralled out of control, he was forced to reluctantly accept that he needed to ask for help. "Can we put out a distress call?" he asked. "Give me an SOS, on all wavelengths!"

Helena checked a dying computer console. "No can do, Cap'n," she said. "They're still jamming us."

Starfire swore again. He had swallowed his pride for nothing.

Helena fixed him a look, staring intently at him with her tired eyes. "We have to surrender," she said. "Cap'n, listen to me!"

"Know your place, Ross. My ship, my rules." He refused to surrender his life and his freedom so easily. He would not just roll over and bow down to his attackers. And if he died, then so be it – but he was certainly not about to just give up.

"All power to the shields," he said to his only surviving crewmember, who had seemingly already lost her morale. "Reroute absolutely everything – the back-up power, the lights, the damn air conditioning. Do it!"

"Yes, Cap'n," sighed Helena.

As she crossed the command deck, both she and Starfire were knocked off their feet by yet another laser strike. Warning sirens rang out.

"Oh, I'm _definitely_ rerouting those!" cried Starfire.

"Cap'n, please, just give up! Hull integrity's at critical. One more direct hit and we're done for. We can't take anymore!"

"Are you panicking, Ross?"

"Getting it out the way now, seeing as I'll be too busy _exploding_ in a few minutes." She paused, looking around at the situation – at her fate.

"We knew this day was coming, though, didn't we?" she continued softly, despite the chaos all around her. "It was only a matter of time before everything caught up with us, I suppose..."

"Yeah," said Starfire. "Karma's a real bitch."

"Oh!" the Doctor cried out in delight as he stepped out of the TARDIS, grinning excitedly. "This looks nice. Come on out, Pond."

Amy Pond followed him out cautiously. "Where are we, then?" she asked. "Apparently not an alien planet, like you promised."

"Afraid not," he replied. "Looks like it's the 42nd Century, and we're on board the _Resilience_, one of the Human Foundation's flagship vessels. And yes, that does mean we're in deep space. Specifically, we're in the Rainbow Nebula. Although, actually, knowing how big this region of space is, that statement's really not very specific at all."

"You can tell all that by what, the architecture? The smell?"

"Nope," said the Doctor. "Just got that feeling."

"You said something about a foundation?"

"The Human Foundation, yeah. Established after First Contact to ensure the human race didn't get lost among the stars. I always help them out whenever I can." He shrugged casually. "I've got a favourite species – so sue me!"

He buzzed the sonic screwdriver around the room, as if searching for something. Then, a screen on the far side of the room that they had arrived in peeled away to reveal a window looking out onto the wonders of the universe.

Amy moved closer, looking on in wonderment as stars and planets and moons of every colour danced around in the inky void. "Wow," she said. There were no other words for it.

"Yeah," replied the Doctor. "Wow." He paused for a moment. Something seemed to be wrong. "This is odd," he said. "Human Foundation ships don't come this way, it's not a standard route. So why is the _Resilience_ all the way out here? Shall we find out?"

The Doctor turned on his heels, already keen to move on.

"But what about this view?" asked Amy. She was lost in its beauty and had to drag herself away from it.

"It's actually pretty standard," the Doctor said dismissively. "Almost unremarkable, in the grand scheme of things. Dozens of other galaxies have iridescent moons and stars that change colour. Later on I'll show you a better view than this – with polka dot asteroids!"

As the Doctor opened a nearby door, he stopped suddenly in his tracks. Two people were now stood in front of him, both armed with _very_ big guns, pointed right at him and Amy.

"I told you," said the Doctor, exasperated, "we're not spies or saboteurs or police. We were just passing through!"

"Passing through my ship?" asked Starfire. "Don't treat me like an idiot! We don't have time for your lies."

Amy watched as the captain paced around the command deck, almost boiling over with anger and frustration. Helena kept her gun fixed on her and the Doctor.

Introductions were over, and interrogations had begun.

"Bit hot in here, isn't it?" asked the Doctor. He undid his bowtie and loosened a few of the top buttons on his shirt in a futile attempt to cool himself down, though Amy thought there were more important things to worry about than the heat.

"Air conditioning's out of action," said Starfire. _Ka-chik!_ – the sound of the captain priming his weapon, ready to fire, echoed around the room. He aimed it at the Doctor. "And it's about to get a whole lot hotter."

"No!" cried Amy. "Listen to him, please – he's the Doctor, okay? He can help you, just like he helps everyone."

"A doctor? In what field of expertise?" asked Helena. "Know anything about starship repairs?"

"I know everything about everything," he replied. "Why? Is something wrong with the _Resilience_?"

"Dreadfully wrong," said Starfire. "We're under attack!"

The Doctor and Amy looked around somewhat awkwardly. It certainly didn't look or sound like the starship was being attacked. Everything was still and calm, almost peaceful.

"Well," said Amy, "I hate to disagree with you..."

"Another craft's been following us for days," said Starfire, lowering his gun, somewhat reluctantly. "We tried to lose it – we only needed to get as far as the bazaar in the Crimson City – but it had our energy signature. It could track us right across the stars."

"It's no wonder you didn't know," said Helena, throwing down her firearm. She seemed keener to be rid of it than Starfire. "The other ship is cloaked. We can't see it, so we can't fight back. There's no way out for us."

"Now that's just cheating," quipped Amy.

"What's been damaged?" asked the Doctor. "We didn't see anything on our way up here, did we, Amy?"

She shook her head. In all honesty, she hadn't really been looking. The gun pointed squarely at her head had demanded most of her attention.

"Oh, they're clever, whoever the hell they are," replied Starfire. "Precision attacks. Lasers with pinpoint accuracy. Knocked out all the important systems and left enough emergency power to keep us breathing and all that. But if there's another strike, we're finished."

"And," Helena added, "we've been like this for _hours_!"

"They're keeping you alive," realised Amy. "They must want you for something."

"Yes, but what?" mused the Doctor, thinking aloud. "I need to find out what this is all for. Only then can I put a stop to it."

"You'll help us, then?" A smile crept out across Starfire's face. There was a look of relief in his eyes as he glanced over at Helena.

"Of course I will," said the Doctor, grinning. "Anything to help the Human Foundation."

Helena mirrored Starfire's cautious smile, though she said nothing.

"Now, can we open communications with your nasty old attackers?"

"It's jammed," Helena said.

The Doctor whipped out the sonic screwdriver. "Consider it unjammed." He ran over to the only control console that still flickered with signs of life, and whirred his trusty gadget against the screen. "Oh. Interesting."

Amy hurried over to join him, preferring to be close to the man with the screwdriver than the man with the gun. She asked what was wrong.

"It's the other ship. They've tried to make contact with the _Resilience_. Twenty times. In the last minute!"

"Demanding surrender, of course," said Starfire. He puffed his chest out and stuck his chin in the air, an act of defiance and pride that Amy thought made him look like an idiot. "But a good captain would sooner die with his ship than see it in the hands of someone else!"

"How do you know that's want they want, though?" the Doctor asked, studying the computer screens. "You've not replied, or even listened to what they have to say." He thought for a moment.

"I don't like this," he went on, unsettled by something that he wasn't entirely sure of. "I don't like this at all. I'm missing something – I _hate_ that! Let's see what they've got to say for themselves."

"No, don't!" cried Helena.

But it was too late. The Doctor had already thrown a lever on the control panel, summoning a view screen that hung above their heads. Amy stared up at what looked like a floating television. At first there was only static, but then it began to clear. Gazing out at the Doctor and his new friends was a face that made Amy instinctively took a few steps backwards.

"Doctor, what is that?" she asked.

"Cobrine," announced the Doctor grimly.

The creature displayed on the view screen was halfway between a man and a serpent. It had two arms and what was clearly a muscled torso, almost human, but below the waist it was purely snake-like. There was only a long, thick tail where its legs might have been. But the head spooked Amy more than anything else. The neck grew outwards, like a hood, leading up to a long, narrow head, out of which two beady eyes gazed. A pair of slits set deep into its reptilian face was all it had for nostrils, and a long tongue lashed out of its mouth with a hiss.

"It's a great big cobra!" said Amy. "Like, man-sized! With arms!"

"It's a Cobrine," insisted the Doctor. "Fascinating species. Evolutionarily divergent from the Mara, their genetic code decided that it was more beneficial to exist firmly as physical manifestations rather than simply vague, mental projections... And none of you have any idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

The three of them shook their heads in unison.

"Poor old simple humans," he said. "Sorry. I have a lot of thoughts, and sometimes I just need to let them pour out. My mouth acts like a sort of overflow valve. All you need to know is that they're big snakes that seem really rather cross." He turned his attention to the Cobrine on the view screen. "So what do you lot want? Why attack this ship?"

"We... We... We..." The creature seemed to find it difficult to speak, like forming words took a huge amount of effort.

"Take as long as you need," said the Doctor patiently.

"We... We want..."

"Yes, go on."

"We... We want... We want them..."

"Ah!" cried the Doctor. "There we are. You want the humans – but you're not getting them! Not on my watch!"

"We want them... We want them _back_."

The Doctor froze. "What?"

_Ka-chik!_

Amy jumped in fright, knowing what the sound from behind her meant. Turning round, she saw that Captain Starfire and Helena had primed their guns, which meant that they were now ready and more than willing to fire. And they were once again pointed right at the Doctor and Amy.

She grabbed hold of the Time Lord's hand, fearing for her own safety, and his. But the Doctor didn't seem to notice the threat – or if he did realise, he didn't seem to be concerned. He simply stared straight ahead, deep in thought.

Eventually, the Doctor turned to face Starfire. "What have you taken?" he asked. "What have you got that belongs to the Cobrine?"

"Shut up!" said Starfire. It was clear to see that he was struggling to keep his cool and maintain control of the situation. "End the transmission, and come with us. Don't try anything, or we'll shoot you and your friend on the spot."

Amy felt on the brink of tears. What worried her most about the whole situation was that, as the Doctor held her hand, his own was trembling, too. Could he really be scared? She didn't like to think that he was.

"I'll call you back," said the Doctor, as casually as he could manage, closing down the view screen. The image of the Cobrine faded away. He turned back to the captain. "Where are you taking us?"

"You wanted to see what we took," said Starfire. "So we're going to show you. It's in the cargo hold. And that's where you'll stay."

The heat was suffocating, down in the darkness. The Doctor and Amy were thrown inside the cramped space – the cargo hold – and the door was locked behind them.

Captain Starfire returned to the command deck, still desperately trying to think of a way out of the predicament, while Helena had been ordered to stand guard outside the hold to make sure that no one escaped. She had refused all the Doctor's desperate pleas for help.

Amy slumped down in the corner, scared and angry and fighting back the tears, while the Doctor fumbled around for a light switch. When he eventually found it, nothing happened. "Doesn't work," he mumbled. "Power's been drained. I'll see what I can do, Pond. Won't be a tick."

Amy watched the Doctor from the shadows. He had regained a little composure, refusing to give up hope entirely. As he often told Amy, there was always a way out. He just had to find it.

The Doctor expertly manipulated some exposed wires and cables dangling from the fuse box. "Rewiring the system," he explained. "Should give us a bit of light, if I'm clever. Which, of course, I am."

He joined Amy in the corner of their pit of blackness, sitting cross-legged beside her on the floor. "It'll take a few minutes to power up," he said.

Amy couldn't think of what to say, so she didn't answer.

"Blimey, it's even hotter down here, isn't it?"

She shrugged. Everything that had happened since coming aboard the _Resilience_ had begun to get on top of her, to weigh her down. This wasn't what the Doctor had promised. This wasn't what she had dreamed of as a little girl.

There was nothing but silence between them for a long while.

Then the Doctor decided to speak up again, and when he did, his voice cracked slightly, broken by sadness. "I'm sorry," he said.

Amy looked up at him. She wasn't sure she'd heard that right. "What?"

"It's all my fault," the Doctor continued. "This is what happens. It's always this. I offered you all of time and space, Amelia Pond. But what did you get? _Hell_. I'm so very, very sorry."

She cleared her throat. "No," she said. "I accepted your invitation, and I wouldn't have done it any differently. It's not as if you deliberately got us into trouble, is it? Like you said earlier, we arrived here by accident... right?"

The Doctor didn't reply.

"Oh, Doctor..." Everything started to make sense to Amy now. "That's how you knew exactly where we'd landed, isn't it?"

"There's always been a mystery surrounding the fate of the _Resilience_," he replied. "I wanted to know what happened, so I brought us here to find out. Selfishly. Again, I'm sorry..."

"Honestly," Amy said, "I don't even mind. Believe it or not, I like all this dangerous stuff. Really, I do. Just don't lie to me about it."

"Really?" asked the Doctor. "So far today, we've been threatened and locked up and we're about to be blown up, I expect... You don't have a problem with that?"

Amy gave a sad smile. "It's the price you have to pay, isn't it? And it's nothing, really, in exchange for what I get. Without you I never would've seen Starship UK, or the fire waterfalls of Voxorn Five, or those funny little dancing men with three legs."

They both managed to laugh at the memory.

"So don't ever, _ever_ apologise to me, Doctor, because this has been the most wonderful time of my life. No, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Not exactly. Not at all, in fact. It's dark and weird and really, _really_ terrifying... But I wouldn't change a thing. I mean, I'm actually in the TARDIS with my Raggedy Doctor. When I was a little girl, I'd have given anything for that to happen. Now it's here, I'll give it _everything_."

The Doctor nodded and mirrored her smile, but he said nothing.

The two of them sat in silence for what felt like an eternity.

"Come on, then," said Amy, after a while. "Explain it to me. I bet you've worked everything out by now, yeah?"

"Most of it, I think," the Doctor replied. "Captain Horatio Starfire and Helena Ross obviously once belonged to the Human Foundation, but now they've defected and turned to a life of crime. I'm not sure exactly why. More money, I expect. That's usually the explanation. And I reckon they stole the _Resilience_ when they ran away."

"Right, got that. But what have those aliens – the Cobrine – got to do with all this?"

"Starfire appears to have stolen something from them – something valuable – worth chasing this ship all the way across the universe for."

"We still don't know what they took, do we?"

Just then, the lights in the cargo hold flickered into life. Amy found the answer to the final mystery, though she couldn't quite believe it.

The pale field of light generated by the dying power cells revealed the cargo hold to be full of dozens of spherical objects. They glistened in Amy's eyes as she stared at them, amazed and entranced. "They're like gems!" she said.

The Doctor seemed less enamoured, however, and the sight of the twinkling gems appalled him. "They're nothing of the sort," he said cryptically.

"What do you mean?" Amy asked.

But the Doctor didn't seem to be listening to her. He hurried over to the locked door and pounded his fist against the impenetrable metal.

"Keep it down in there!" came Helena's muffled cries, as she stood guard outside the cargo hold.

"Listen to me!" cried the Doctor desperately. "I understand it all now, but _you_ clearly don't. Let me out, and I can stop all this. I can solve it, I promise you."

"We're not falling for that one, I'm afraid."

"You'll be killed!"

"And you two will die with us," replied Helena coldly.

Amy, meanwhile, cautiously approached one of the many spheres, fascinated by them. They were entrancing, and seemed to draw her in.

"Just tell me," said the Doctor to Helena, "what you think you've stolen."

"Treasure," she said simply. "Worth a fortune, we believe."

"Oh, you're not wrong there. But it's not traditional treasure. These certainly aren't gems, even though they might look like it."

Amy reached out to touch a sphere, and as she did, the shell of it began to crack, like it was breaking from the inside. Like something was breaking _out_...

"They're crystalline pods," said the Doctor. "Natural preservers of life. And inside them all, growing, right now, are life forms. That's right, Helena. They're eggs!"

Amy watched as the crack in the shell grew wider, and out of it poked the head of a newborn snake.

"Children of the Cobrine!" the Doctor said. "That's what you stole. Is it any wonder why they followed you across the stars and chased you down? And I'll tell you something else, because you've made another big mistake...

"You lot turned off the air conditioning down here, didn't you? This is right next to the engine room! The residual heat has accelerated the eggs' growth cycle. A hundred starving snakes are about to be born! So let us out of here, before me and my friend are eaten alive, and I promise I'll do the right thing!"

Amy rushed over to join the Doctor. She took hold of his arm whilst keeping her eyes firmly on the newly hatched snake. It was only small but it looked dangerous, as it began to break out of the egg.

Amy couldn't hide the fact that she was scared. But he would keep her safe. Her Raggedy Doctor would protect her, she was sure of that.

There was silence in the cargo hold. Helena was considering the Doctor's offer, that much was clear. Amy willed her to let them out of the cargo hold before it was too late. Hearing muffled voices, she and the Doctor pressed their ears against the door and listened in.

Helena was speaking into her communicator. "Can you hear me, Cap'n?" she asked. "You'd better get down here and open up the cargo hold."

"Why?" came Starfire's reply, over the airwaves. "What's changed?"

"Everything."

On the command deck, Captain Starfire closed down the communications channel and sat back in his chair, trying and failing to relax. He exhaled to relieve the pressure, and then, as he still felt troubled, he did it again. The situation with the Cobrine had spiralled out of control so fast that he could scarcely believe it.

Up until the unexpected attack, he and his crewmates – no, his _friends_ – had been sailing across the stars, getting into trouble and then getting out of it again. That was the fun of it. But then came the fateful expedition down into the caves of Venox Alpha, where the gang had stolen what they believed to be a stockpile of crystals. How wrong they had been...

Starfire replayed Helena's recent revelations over and over again in his mind. Eggs? Not treasure, but _eggs_? How had he made such a stupid, dangerous mistake? He didn't know, neither did he know how he was going to get out of this mess.

It seemed that this stranger, the Doctor, was so much wiser than everyone else. He had worked it all out so fast and so easily. Could he really fix the whole situation? Starfire hated not being in control, but he had no other option. He was out of ideas. The Doctor was his only hope.

Somewhat reluctantly, Starfire made his way down through the crumbling levels of the crippled starship, armed with the codes for the cargo hold.

The empty silence gave him a chance to think – something that he usually avoided doing whenever possible. His life had been so full of lies and cheats and deception that Starfire had decided long ago that it was best to forget all about his past. He tried to convince himself that he was a good man, but he knew that he was not.

Panicked outcries from nearby interrupted Starfire's melancholic contemplation, and he instinctively quickened his pace, as he got closer to the cargo hold. Trapped within, he heard the Doctor and Amy were frantically pounding on the locked door, and Helena was powerless to help them.

It all depended on Starfire.

But as his hand hovered over the door's control panel, ready but not quite willing to punch in the release code, it was as if time stood still for a few moments. The shouts faded away into nothingness. All that Starfire could hear was his heartbeat accompanied by his own dark, terrible thoughts.

He had the Doctor's reassurances that, if Starfire released him, he would get the _Resilience_ out of this mess. But that made Starfire wonder if he even _deserved_ to live.

And he reached the conclusion that, no, he didn't.

"What are you waiting for?" asked the Doctor from within, as if sensing that something was wrong. "Let us out!"

"No," said Starfire firmly.

No one said anything else. They couldn't quite believe what they had just heard.

"What's all this about, Cap'n?" Helena asked, confused.

"I don't deserve to survive this," said Starfire. "Death has been chasing me for years, ever since we defected and crossed over to the wrong side of the law. Now it's caught up with me, in the form of the Cobrine. I'm tired of fighting it. I'm tired of running. This is the day I die."

"But _we_ shouldn't have to die!" replied a desperate Amy. "You'd be killing us, too!"

"You and the Doctor are good people," said Starfire, fighting back the tears. "I know that. You'd try to save me. But I'm a bad man. I've killed already, so many times. And now, apparently, I kidnap poor, defenceless younglings that aren't even fully alive yet! Unintentional as it may have been, that doesn't stop it from being unforgiveable. What have I become? Something that needs to be put down, that's for sure. A monster..."

"Captain," the Doctor said from the other side of the locked door. He spoke softly, calmly, _delicately_. "Listen to me. I've never met any human being in the universe who didn't have a redeeming quality, however slight, that means that they should grow and develop and get _better_. Forget what you _have_ done, and concentrate on what you _could_ do – what you're _going to do _after this.

"Now, open this door, Horatio Starfire, and embrace tomorrow. I can give you a whole new future, free from sin, and save your soul before it's too late. So, Captain, what do you say? Deal?"

"Alternatively," Amy added, "just let _us_ out. We can leave in the TARDIS while your ship gets—" A glare from the Doctor told her to stop talking. She muttered a half-hearted apology and waited for the captain's decision.

After a long while, the door to the cargo hold creaked open, and the Doctor and Amy stepped out. Starfire greeted them with a sad smile.

But something else was leaving the cargo hold behind them. It slithered along the grubby floor, before rearing up to display the colours that decorated its hood, which crowned its face and its mighty array of sharp fangs, and the lashing tongue between them. The four of them watched the snake advance towards them, as they slowly edged backwards, retreating away from it.

"One of the eggs has fully hatched," said the Doctor quietly, not wanting to alarm the creature and cause it to attack out of fear. "Its growth cycle was accelerated by the intense heat in there. In a few standard weeks, this little fella will grow into one of the big, adult Cobrine. Till then, it just looks like regular snake – but it's still pretty dangerous. Well, _incredibly _dangerous. One bite is all it takes. Be careful, everyone. And try to stay calm."

"Easier said than done," quipped Amy.

Starfire instinctively reached for his holstered gun.

"Don't you dare!" snapped the Doctor. "It's scared and angry – and who can blame it? We just need to calm it down..."

Breaking off, he began to search through his limitless pockets. Eventually, he pulled out a battered old recorder, and he held it aloft triumphantly. "It's lucky I'm such a hoarder – never throw anything away!"

The snake suddenly sprung forwards, now so close to the retreating foursome. It hissed at them. A liquid – deadly _venom_ – dripped from its fangs.

"Do something, Doctor!" cried Amy.

The Doctor nodded, and began to play a gentle, soothing tune on the recorder, while also moving the instrument about in a rhythmical, entrancing way. The snake ceased its advance and began to mirror the movement with its body, imitating the left to right and up and down motion, until it seemed completely calmed.

Its body coiled up, as it slowly lowered itself flat against the floor.

"Phew!" said the Doctor to Amy, as the other three also shared in his sigh of relief. "I'm so glad that worked. Now, let's see if the fully-grown Cobrine can be quite so easily charmed."

"I hope so, yes," said Starfire.

But the Doctor didn't answer. He simply looked at Starfire, with such darkness in his eyes. He walked off, and didn't say another word to any of them.

"Doctor, what are you doing?"

"Taking control!"

Amy, Starfire and Helena stood well back as the Doctor strode confidently onto the command deck, to do what needed to be done. He seemed driven by anger, fuelled by Starfire's recent actions. He aggressively threw a lever, and the view screen showing the Cobrine appeared once again, suspended in mid-air.

Everyone watched the Last of the Time Lords in stunned silence. The bowtie was fastened and back in its rightful place, now that he was in a position of power and no longer a victim. For the first time since stepping out onto the _Resilience_, he was the Doctor.

"Come in, Cobrine Commander! This is the Doctor speaking! The _Resilience_ is yours. Come and reclaim your children. And on behalf of the human race, please accept my sincerest apologies. I'll keep a closer eye on them in future. You have my word."

"What... What about... What about thieves?" hissed the snake-like creature.

"Oh, don't worry," said the Doctor, staring right at Starfire and Helena. "When I'm finished here, there won't be anyone left alive on this ship."

Captain Starfire gulped.

The TARDIS engines coughed and spluttered as a little blue box defied all logic and common sense, inexplicably appearing in a sleek white corridor, thousands of light years away from where it had last stood.

The doors flew open, and Starfire and Helena tumbled out, closely followed by the Doctor and Amy.

"Impossible!" cried Helena. "That, in there, was completely impossible!"

"It's my speciality," the Doctor, grinning.

"Where are we?" asked Starfire, looking around.

"The headquarters of the Shadow Proclamation."

"We're being arrested?"

The Doctor nodded.

"But you said you'd help us, that you'd save my soul and bring about my redemption!" said Starfire, panicked.

"And what else are prisons for?" asked the Doctor coldly.

"But," said Helena, "you told us how you always help humans! As soon as we explained to you what happened, that's what you said to us."

"I know," replied the Doctor. "And that was wrong of me. You lot shouldn't get special treatment, just because I have soft spot for you. If you break the rules, then you get punished, just like everyone else."

The Doctor took a deep breath, and continued, "When I arrived on the _Resilience_, I immediately took your side, despite you pointing a gun in our faces. I just assumed I knew what was going on, that the terrified humans were under attack from the scary aliens. I was rash. I didn't think things through. So you two should feel privileged."

"Why?"

"You saw me make a mistake. I won't let something like that happen again." From far down the corridor, the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard. "Anyhoo, must dash. Say _Bo-Sho-Kro_ to the Judoon for me, will you?"

Before anything else could be said, the Doctor and Amy stepped inside the TARDIS and disappeared.

Captain Horatio Starfire and Helena Ross watched as the Judoon marched menacingly towards them.

"Snakes _and_ rhinos..." said Starfire. "What a day!"

The Doctor was at the TARDIS scanner, reading from the information displayed on the screen. "The Cobrine have taken the _Resilience_ back to Venox Alpha, and their children with it. So _that_ is what happened to the ship, eh?" He clapped his hands together. "Mystery solved."

Amy leaned against the railings, not really listening to what the Doctor was saying. He seemed keen to move on, as always, but Amy's thoughts were still with Starfire and Helena. "Doctor," she said, "they're going to prison."

"Yes," he replied, "and we're going to the planet Radion Minima, where you can get superpowers for a day. Personally, I'm hoping for invisibility. Think of the things you could get up to!"

Amy looked the Doctor up and down. "X-Ray vision for me."

The Doctor adjusted his bowtie. "Not now, Pond."

Amy studied him as he flicked a switch on the controls. "Something's wrong, isn't it?" she said. "You still look rattled."

The Doctor arched an eyebrow. "Was that an attempt at a snake joke?"

Amy thought for a moment. "Nope. Happy accident. But answer me, Doctor. Today unsettled you, didn't it?"

"Takes more than a few overgrown cobras and gun-wielding space pirates to unsettle me." His smile failed to reassure Amy.

"All this business with the _Resilience_," Amy went on. "This was, like, a normal day for you, wasn't it? I thought Starship UK and the Ironside stuff was like a one-off, but this is what life in the TARDIS is going to be, isn't it?"

The Doctor stopped what he was doing and looked over at her, deep into her eyes. "Yeah. Does it really not bother you?"

Amy opened her mouth to reply, but the TARDIS phone began to ring. The Doctor apologised and answered it. "Hello? Oh, it's you, Isambard. How have you been? Good, yes, fine. Is there a problem?"

Amy watched as a smile crept out across the Doctor's face. "Of course I can help," he said after a while. "I'll be with you soon. Hugs and kisses." The Doctor hung up the phone and looked over at Amy.

"Friend of yours?" she asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Bit of bother in the 1800s. Fancy it?"

"Will it be dangerous?"

"Sounds like it, yeah."

Amy smiled. "Good."

The Doctor grinned back at her. He slammed a lever, and Amy braced herself as the room tipped to one side. She looked up at the time rotor as it began its hypnotic rise and fall.

Next stop: Danger. It was always going to be.

And Amy Pond wouldn't have it any other way.

THE END


End file.
